A Plethora of Oddities and Other Updates.

A little done here, a little done there, nothing really accomplished anywhere. Or at least that's how it feels. With Steph's due date rapidly approaching, the focus has shifted away from the parlor and onto the to-be nursery.

Ain't them walls lovely folks? Yup. And guess who's job it is to fix them. Let me tell you, working with plaster is a pain in the rear. BUT it'll be great when there's actually a baby in there. Below is a picture of how thick the plaster is...granted this chunk came from an exterior wall (immensely helpful when the prison is being loud in the wee hours), which are about twice as thick as interior walls, but basically having concrete for walls makes for a wonderful sound dampener.


So a few weeks ago I went down in the basement at night to take a shower when I saw this scurrying about the walls.

It was creepy, and I promptly caught it and threw it out side. Can you blame me? Well, that night or the next day I went online and tried to figure out what it was. When I found out, I rather regretted my decision. It is a House Centipede. Completely harmless to humans, and they eat just about every household pest (bugs, spiders, silverfish, termites..the works). So...if you happen to find one of these crawling about in your basement, just let it be! I was actually quite happy when Steph told me she saw another one down there (we have lots of spiders in our basement).

Once the weather grew tolerable, Scholma came over and started helping me clear our property. Little did I realize from my friendship with the mild mannered teacher while in CA, but Scholma is a lethal combination of Paul Bunyan and Captain Napalm. Not only does he cut down trees with ruthless efficiency, he builds towering seven foot blazes to reduce the once mighty timber into simpering ashes.

"Oh sure," you say, "That's more like a two foot blaze." True enough. But that was our first fire. We have had three since, and with each one we grew more bold (read: 'reckless') and built increasingly massive fires. But even the modest blaze pictured above...it was created on a Monday. Thursday afternoon I went outside, stirred the coals around and threw a branch on, and it promptly caught on fire. Now that is pretty intense.

Another thing that Scholma helped me with was building this handy dandy bridge with which we can cross the creek with great ease. When we first built it, there was no support in the middle, and it felt like it would collapse if more than one person was on it at a time, so we took some logs and propped it up. It is now solid as a rock!


Oh, and let me tell you a little about the wildlife associated with that creek. We have 20 in. rainbow trout (we don't see those all the time, but on several occasions now), Northern Water Snakes (which grow to be up to 4ft. I see one every time I go back there on a sunny day...thankfully they are harmless to humans and don't bite unless you try to pick it up), giant crawdads, frogs, smaller fish, and just about anything else that might possibly reside in a small river. Our kids are going to love it!

This is just a picture I took of the woods as Scholma and I were clearing (our property...if it lives in Michigan, we have it in our woods. There will be much venison consummation come fall!).

As the weather turned even nicer, Stephanie and I were drawn away from the never ending labor inside the home, and we started working in the yard. Stephanie graphed out, and began construction on a vegetable garden. It isn't quite finished being staked out yet, but it will be concentric, raised beds three feet wide (and then a three foot path, another three foot bed, path, then a bed in the middle). Stephanie has also been quite excited to start a compost. She derives a great deal of pleasure from throwing food onto the pile. Ein derives a great deal of pleasure from eating the food when Stephanie isn't looking.

Well, this past weekend I took a break from all the work and went down to visit my folks for the weekend. The purpose for this was two-fold. First, my Grandpa and Grandma Anderson were going to be there, and it was Grandpa's birthday Friday, and also my dad was preaching at their magnificent Presbyterian church on Sunday (I say magnificent because it is a stunning cathedral).

On Friday we mostly played games. I almost won the first game of Rail Barron, but Grandma intercepted me on my way home and handed the victory to Grandpa. It's OK. I let him win since it was his birthday. Besides, I won the next game AND won when we played Bamboo...even though I had never played it before!

Saturday Grandpa, Dad and I went to North East (that's actually the name of the city...) because there was a train museum there.

"But Kevin," you say "this is not a picture of a train museum!" Truer words were never spoken! We got there around 10:30 to find that the museum didn't open until noon. So we drove around town for a bit looking at the amazing old houses, and then found a little beach on Lake Erie for Otto to play on.

After that we went out for lunch at a old farm house. It looked like it was going to be one of those $20 a plate kinda places, but we all got double bacon cheeseburgers for $6.50. Delicious and cheap, can't beat that!

Then the train museum...

I couldn't believe how narrow the hallways in the cars were.

Then we crawled onto this engine to find...
...quite possibly the most cramped crapper ever. Yes...it is as small as it looks.
When I got back I got some bad news from my Mom. Otto has Lyme Disease. I think they caught it pretty early, but Mom didn't say what the prognosis was.


Also when I got back, it was back to work! Stephanie was working on weeding our very much overgrown flower bed...

...while I tried to clean off our very much overgrown sidewalk. The picture doesn't show it amazingly well, but you can kinda see how at our property line, half the sidewalk disappears under grass. That's what Our part of it looked like. So now, instead of being overgrown and decrepit, it's just decrepit.
Also, we bought some fruit trees and planted those on the hill behind the garage. We got two apple, two peach, and two sweet black cherry. I am SO excited for the day they start bearing fruit...assuming they don't die first.

And what's that you say? You notice those beautiful lines mowed onto the hill and you want to know what fine mower accomplished such a fantastic feat? Well, I'd be happy to tell you all about it! This is my new lawn mower; a John Deere SST18 (Safety first! Always wear ear protection! Just kidding, I just wanted to be able to hear my ipod).

Now, there are a couple of cool things about this. First, is that brand new, these cost $5000. It's a 2004 with low hours, and I got it for $1700. Every other 2004 SST18 I could find online were selling for anywhere from $2500-3500. Oh! How I love a good deal (I'm so Dutch). Best of all, it's a zero turn. It's steered by the back wheels rotating at different speeds, and if you slow down and turn, one wheel will actually go reverse, hence the zero turning radius. But, unlike most zero turns, you can in fact put a plow on the front of this, and I can use it in the winter to plow my driveway! It's the best of both worlds!!!! I know you're excited.

While I was picking up sticks in preparation for this epic step in manhood (The First Mow of your New House), I uncovered what I had thought previously to be just a pile of old leaves. Kicking them aside, I found something rather...odd...underneath.

In case you can't read it, it says:
Alva O. Inman - Died Sept. 30, 1855, in the 28 Yr. of HIS AGE.
To make it even more creepy, this is pretty much right next to the house.

After a quick Google search on his name, all we know about him is that he is (hopefully) buried in Ionia's oldest graveyard, "Oak Hill" (Not in our yard as we initially feared). But this begs the question, what the heck is this? Is this a monument to where he died (like those crosses on the side of a highway? Which would make it only a little less creepy than it being his actual grave). Remember, our house was built in 1887, so while it is possible there was another house here before, we don't think he lived here. So why is this marker here? Apparently, we have some investigating to do.